I’m nine episodes in and think I’ve worked out why—out of all the fictional characters that exist—Carrie Bradshaw sits on a pedestal above most. There are the more obvious and cliché reasons—the job, apartment, city, wardrobe, hair, yada yada. But there’s an underlying note of relatability that often gets missed.
Her anxious attachment.
It’s subtle, until it’s not. Kind of like one of those optical illusions that you can’t see, until it’s the only part of the picture you can focus on. As an anxiously attached person myself, there are moments in this episode—like Big telling her on the phone he doesn’t want to get married again—where I can physically feel her heart stop beating. Watching Carrie’s anxiety-led interactions with men feels painfully familiar.
She asks another question in this episode too, “Is it better to marry someone who loves you more than you love them?”
Call me a hopeless romantic, but sacrificing true love in favour of settling? JLo would never. It is, however, an insight into the minds of women who battle with anxious attachment. Rightly or wrongly, marriage is the aim, the goal, the holy grail. Without it, we are lesser mortals, unloveable outcasts, subjected to a life of misery.
I suppose there’s always the hope that we might learn to love the person we’ve agreed to marry? In this episode, Samantha grooms a man named Bernie Turtletaub. According to Carrie, Turtletaub, AKA Turtle, was a Manhattan legend known for two things: good investments and bad breath.
Samantha however, sees potential in the Turtle. “A cute little fixer-upper,” she says. Could some spearmint gum, a facial and a Helmut Lang suit help Sam fall in love with this man? Or is this just another storyline showcasing a strong woman settling for a man she’s better off without? Like Andy with needy Nate Cooper in The Devil Wears Prada, or Blair with that arsehole Chuck Bass during six long seasons of Gossip Girl.
The more I looked, the more I noticed that stories encouraging women to settle were everywhere. For instance, the one I grew up hearing of Persephone falling in love with Hades after he stalks, kidnaps and holds her hostage in the underworld. Couple goals!
According to Greek mythology, Persephone is the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of harvest. Once upon a time, the world was evergreen thanks to Demeter, with plants, flowers and life in full bloom twelve months of the year. Until her daughter was taken by Hades—God of the underworld—and Demeter in her grief, let the Earth turn barren.
After a collective growing concern for lack of food and sustenance, it was agreed by the gods that Persephone could return to Earth and spend one half of the year with Demeter, and the other half of the year with Hades back in the underworld. It’s here—we’re told—the seasons were born. For the six months of the year that Persephone was with her Mother, the earth bloomed with new life and growth, the weather warm and pleasant. But when Persephone returned to the underworld for the second half of the year, her Mother’s grief returned and with it, the earth grew cold and harsh.
See! Even Greek mythology teaches us to settle for what we can get! If we just give our kidnappers a chance! We might create a necessary, cyclical balance for the rest of humanity! Settling is good! Settling is selfless!
It’s no wonder so many of us are anxiously attached.
Out of all the attachment styles though, anxious attachment gets a lot of bad press. Yes, we settle. Yes, we need to be reminded throughout the day that you still like us. Yes, we know where your ex-girlfriend went to school.
But we’re also thoughtful, empathetic, loyal and kind.
We’re also not really to blame for our anxious attachment. It can be caused by a number of factors, none of which need to be huge, neglectful experiences. It’s been said that a parent just leaving the room can develop an anxious attachment style in a child. And please, join me in prayer for this kid.
Of course, as we get older, even banal flings can play a big part in developing an anxious attachment style too.
Like that graphic designer I dated who lived in Brighton, smoked rollies and wore a beanie in summer. His Dad paid the rent on his sea view townhouse and the petrol in his car. I was eating cereal for dinner and stealing toilet paper from work. We were two different species but for one long, hot summer, we were obsessed with each other.
He invited me to his parent’s house for dinner and his Mum made spaghetti bolognese. He covered his in tomato ketchup but I didn’t care. I was his and he was mine.
His friends told me he was really into me, that they’d never seen him like this. I felt proud of myself for being liked. And in a bid to remain liked, I’d sit quietly in the corner of their living rooms whilst they all got high and played FIFA. Afterwards, he’d tell me how refreshing it was to hang out with a girl so laid back. I’m not laid back, I thought. Just desperate to be loved. And kinda stoned.
It was like that most times we hung out. Until on a not-so-special Tuesday in September, he stopped replying to my messages.
The confusion of being abandoned by him lingered and festered, creating this big space where relationship anxiety built and built and built until that space grew so big, it became my entire personality. An anxious, fearful personality, hanging off the hooks of a man who puts tomato ketchup on his spaghetti bolognese. And so for years to come, just like Carrie, I’d settle for anyone who’d have me.
Let’s skip ahead here for a moment—twenty years give or take. It’s episode one of And Just Like That, the revival series of SATC, and Big unexpectedly dies. Some months pass after his death, before Carrie asks Miranda whether her late husband Big was a big mistake. Remember, it’s been twenty years give or take. Twenty years of her life she regrets.
Might her life have looked different if she’d been more aware of her attachment style? Probably not. Maybe she’d have had more luck if an alternative character had been written in to the script? With a small but important cameo in one of the earlier episodes—set to change the trajectory of Carrie’s entire life. Maybe it could’ve been an old friend she bumps into whilst buying shoes and racking up more credit card debt? Another trait of the anxiously attached, might I add.
Imagine Carrie looking down at her feet, playing with her hair, telling her old friend that there’s trouble in paradise with this guys she’s dating. She’ll say something about there being no such thing as perfect, but there’s just something about him and maybe, just maybe, she’ll be the one to change him.
Imagine her old friend sighs before saying something like, “Carrie listen, all I hope for you, is that you remember your worth. Maybe one day someone else will jog your memory or you’ll come to realise it yourself. But I want you to understand there is nothing wrong with you and there never has been. I want you to take back ownership of your heart and open yourself back up to others who are far more in sync with the beat of it. There is a greater love out there that you have yet to find. But before you do, I want you to chop up your credit cards, go to therapy, and look in the mirror before telling yourself you’ve been born into consciousness on a floating rock in a rare blink of eternity so please! For the love of God! Stop settling!”
But I mean, she probably wouldn’t have listened.
She wouldn’t have listened! It would be the best thing a friend could share though. We all have to get there on our own.
Her relatability of ‘desperate to be loved’ is one of the biggest factors of SATC’s success in my opinion. However, 20 years later it’s much harder to relate to her regrets in And Just Like That.
I think many of us surpassed Carrie on the journey…
Best one yet